Thanks for the heads up I’m already on it and almost finished writing an email to @Fredo.
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Could we please FINALLY get PDF support where on windows computers - we can import PDF vector information into Layout without having to change the PDF file format. I need my pdf information to come in with colour, not as dxf vector line work as black and white.
This kind of request in my mind is one of the first things that should have been fixed when creating the layout program. PDF’s are the most popular file sharing type among professionals and have been for decades. I think this is more than a reasonable request and yet here we are today with no PDF importing support for windows using Layout… I think this has been a feature request for many many years now.
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??? I don’t suggest this option should replace the possibility of editing viewport in 3d.
Great testimony, it was awesome to read Dougs testimony on that thread. Here’s a good comment I agree with @trampy about
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Hey dezmo,
Thanks for linking this in to the overall conversation …
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I am also 100% on board to make our voices heard to fix layout. I’ve explained my grievances on this forum for years and am losing the energy to repeat again.
A few seemingly simple things could be a good start:
- General performance that keeps pace with SU. (loading speed of pages, loading speed of viewports, editing speed of text blocks for crying out loud)
- Ability to extract information from SU that can be presented in LO without a clunky middle step (for example, on architectural drawings: the ability to create a door tag in LO (without the weird label arrow workaround) that extracts info from a SU door component that can dynamical be linked and updated in a door schedule without the “re-export” of an XL file every time you make a change to the SU component) In other words, simple BIM type features.
- COMPONENTS IN LO!!
- Ability for third party plugins in LO! I thought this was near done 3 releases ago. What happened?
I agree that a proper LO with some upgrades could dominate the AEC industry. Let’s see it SU/LO team!
On another note:
I believe I’ve asked this before on this forum: Aren’t there some smart programmers out there that we could rally together and just create a third party application that takes the place of LO and talks to SU? I would kick in for such a venture. If Trimble ain’t gonna do it, maybe someone else should.
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That was one of my bigger points, too. It’s just…well, insane, honestly. The program EXPORTS to PDF, but won’t import it? I sometimes add a lot of spec sheets for hardware and such, and converting all of those to jpg is such a pain.
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Got this email:
Trimble is conducting a survey to better understand workflow and collaboration patterns in the construction industry. Please share some of your knowledge with us — the survey should take less than ten minutes to complete. Your feedback may be used to inform product design and development.
Just a heads up: this survey will close on Monday, May 24th.
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Just threw my hat in on the survey. Hopefully it leads to some changes, but the questions weren’t too specific.
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If a 3-party Layout replacement existed, there would be trouble 
People could use the free online Sketchup with it, and no money would go to Trimble. Lets hope they step it up to avoid that gloomy scenario.
What’s the difference between this scenario and people using AutoCad or Revit or… to create their documents? Those are third party.
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Yes Mike,
Thanks for publicizing this Survey …
I filled it out … (and of course, tried to hijack and channel every question into being about LayOut, and it’s inadequacies), because that’s what Trimble really needs to hear!
I encourage others to do the same, if they are so inclined!
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Well the big difference is that LayOut does is link to the SketchUp model, puts in scale, and other custom functions that fit with SketchUP and other CAD at present does not. Slow or not, it links and updates seamlessly. (OK there are some seams showing in the last version). So a possible third party linking better to SketchUp would make a ripple.
Well then the third party “layout” could be made only compatible with SU Pro.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather it be the SU Layout, but as is the topic of this thread, I am tired of waiting for Trimble to put meaningful development into SU Layout.
I reviewed the survey, and while it may assist Trimble in developing something for the Collaborative workflow, I didn’t see any questions that focus directly on the question at hand, "how can LayOut be improved to meet clients (user) workflow? If Trimble wants to learn and understand their users needs on layout, try something like “What do our clients need?”, not “how are our clients collaborating?”.
As a designer, who has used Autocad for over 30 years, I reached the point many others reach, Why am I paying thousands of dollars every year or two for a product that isn’t listening to my needs. I saw countless others asking for improvements, yet every release bragged about new options that did nothing to improve my process. And like so many others, I decided enough was enough, it was time to leave Autodesk. So I started looking around for options. The first stop was Revit, it was 3D, it was Bim, It was automated, however there was a few things wrong. First it was AUTODESK, second it meant chaining myself to thousands of dollars every year or two. So Revit was NOT GOING TO WORK. I refuse to become a cash cow for another corporation that cares more about profit, and less about customers.
I found SketchUp, and it seemed like a win win. A growing company that strived to understand its customers, and each release showed improvements at the user level. A work horse instead of a runway model. With a open source SketchUp platform with 3rd party developers pounding out extensions by the week, the sky was the limit. The only limited link was Layout. in 2016 at basecamp, Trimble announced that Layout would become open source, and developers would be able to create extensions. Freaking awesome, the flood gates are opened. BUT as time passed, and extensions not arriving, we were told in 2018 basecamp “plans had changed, and layout would stay closed source”. That was my first strike for Trimble, never make a promise you can’t keep.
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As has been mentioned before, Trimble is a large company, it might just be that the one who’s responsible for the questions doesn’t even know that LayOut exists. In an earlier post I mentioned the Chief Digital Officer who is responsible for the way that Trimble engages with their clients. He might be responsible for that survey, I do not know.
I just posted it here, to give endusers of LayOut a chance before the survey will end (I believe it ended yesterday 24) It is the responsibility of the LayOut enduser to give it some attention, I believe, all these general surveys are optimised to generate quick and useful insight and need to be general (how many surveys do you get while visiting websites?)
It also proves that Trimble is looking for ways to improve the relation with it’s clients, despite some negative posts, here. Some of those posts are also contradictory, in that on the one hand they talk about ‘Trimble doesn’t listen to their customers’ and on the other hand they are afraid to share ‘their usage’. (This is about 'Metadata, not the designs themselves, by the way)
I also don’t think they will go as far as Autodesk, which knows how many times every command in the program is used.
(now I’m getting a bit philosophical) Seeing that society and the AEC in particular is moving towards a more open model where it is increasingly important to collaborate early on, I feel more comfortable with Trimble’s philosophy than Autodesk’s, where their marketing mechanisms are mainly geared towards getting people to use precisely their products (alone), while Trimble emphasizes collaborating with as many different programs as possible.
Suppose every software package listens to its users and implements everything they want (yes, even Food Mixer©, which of course always lags behind), then in the end you are actually working with the same package, in terms of possibilities?
In the end it is about being best prepared for the changes that are coming, in my opinion. With everything that is available already at the moment within the SketchUp universe, as a small independent, I am at the right place.
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It is just a zipped file with XML code, anyone can look into it. Check this post:
Good luck ArayaCAD! Please keep us updated! 
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I guess many things could be looked at as somewhat contradictory. I appreciate your comments and agree with most of them in that comment of yours that I quoted above. Analyzing my comments or others that trimble is not listening to it’s customers and calling it contradictory which sounds like a generalization btw based on your comment, I don’t really agree with the generalization. I think these products could be way better and a whole lot sooner and I think most people can agree with that and see that there is a lot of room for improvement, room for improvement that I think should have started being filled years ago. I know a number of software companies who really get it and bust out the features and take advantage of the potential their products could have. Their ratings and popularity and growth are massive as a result of “getting it”. Clickup is an amazing example of a software company who ticks just about every box you could want in a project managment software company or software company in general. Their team is a very small team doing big things. Every single week they come out with a handful of features to improve the product and they are always transparent with their customers and provide amazing customer service and feedback on community threads. Clickup is a perfect example of a winning business model and their growth in revenue and growing number of customers is a result of that business model.
I guess my point is that, I do think Trimble is listening and that they do care, as you seem to be suggesting. I’m sure they care quite a bit about these products. What I’m saying is that I think a lot more could be done, a whole lot more. Therefore maybe they are listening as you suggest, but they sure aren’t getting it and whoever is in charge of decisions financially doesn’t really see how much better these programs should be and could have started being years ago. Again looking at the update history between 2016 and 2020 for example, it’s weak and very little development has been done that is useful for it’s customers for both products in comparison to what could be done. Sketchup and Layout are amazing products that should be taken more seriously.
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